The Steele-Reese Foundation, a trust for charitable purposes, was created by Eleanor Steele Reese on August 10, 1955. As a matter of legal form, it is a trust and is governed by New York State law. Under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code, it is classified as a private foundation.

The original trustees were Sidney W. Davidson and J.P. Morgan & Co., Incorporated (now JPMorgan Chase Bank). William T. Buice, III succeeded Sidney W. Davidson as a trustee in 1974. Robert T.H. Davidson became a trustee in 1958, and Patricia F. Davidson succeeded him on his death in July of 1998. In December of 2001, Charles U. Buice succeeded Patricia Davidson as a trustee of the foundation. JP Morgan Chase Bank remains the foundation’s corporate trustee.

The two individual trustees have the sole responsibility for determining grants and they share the investment, administrative, and other responsibilities with the corporate trustee. To hold overhead to a minimum, the foundation does not maintain its own separate office and it employs no full-time staff. However, the individual trustees are assisted in their grant responsibilities in southern Appalachia by Judy Owens and in Idaho and Montana by Jeanne E. Wolverton.

(Contact information for the trustees and the two regional representatives can be found on the Contacts page of this web site.)